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A Mutiny in Time

Infinity Ring series book 1

James Dashner

Scholastic US

ISBN: 9780545386968

RRP: $14.99

Age: 8+

Key Words: Action, History

Published: 01 Sept 2012

Reviewer: Kylie Calwell

Dak Smyth is a history buff and his best friend Sera Froste is a science nerd. One day they sneak into Dak’s parent’s lab and find the key to time travel, a device called the Infinity Ring. The first activation of this device triggers events they couldn’t possibly have predicted. Dak’s parents are lost in time. Dak and Sera find themselves caught up in a war for the fate of humankind. The two are recruited, a little reluctantly, by a group called the Hystorians, from whom they learn that history has gone off its course. This deviation is disastrous, not just politically but they also believe it is tied into the increase in natural disasters.

It is up to Dak, Sera and young Hystorian Riq to fix these breaks. They need to track them down and then figure out how things went wrong. This sounds like a grand adventure but things soon become very real and very dangerous.

This is an intriguing plot idea, not one that hasn’t been seen before but this deals with it in an interesting way. The world Dak and Sera inhabit is different from ours, for example Columbus didn’t discover America. This is a fun concept, maybe more so for those with a bit of historical knowledge.

Dak is a history buff, he has a bad habit of spouting random information at the most inopportune times. His parents are scientists who are working in secret, keeping things even secret from him. Sera is a genius, it is she who figures out how to make the Ring work. She is the girl of calculations and science. They aren’t alike but accept each other and have a friendship made stronger by similar experiences.

Dak is impulsive that is his weakness, he is eager to experience the things he has only read about. Sera is more cautious but that can put any chance of them fixing the breaks at risk by not being willing to act. Riq is their reluctant companion and has a good head-butting relationship with Dak. Riq is able to marry the two extremes of his two young companions.

I enjoyed this. I liked spotting the differences to our reality. You might expect the results of these breaks to jar but they don’t, you just accept the fact that this world is like an alternative reality of our own. I look forward to the rest of the series.